Thankful Thursday!

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses." -Allophones Karr

Another week has passed and now we are at week four of The Gratitude Posts aka Thankful Thursdays. My how time flies. Here are the five things I am thankful for this week...


Diversity- I am very grateful for so many different people on this earth. I absolutely love learning about other cultures! I find that Liverpool is much like home because of all of the different ethnic groups that are found here. I love it. How boring would life be if we were all the same! I am a super minority here and I am learning so much because no one does things here the way America or Scranton does them. I am incredibly grateful to be learning about different English and Welsh customs. I also really love the tolerance of diversity here in England. It's kind of like no one sees a skin color or minds a completely different culture thrown in the mix.


Words- If there is someone in this world who is not grateful for words than shame on them. I love words and I am glad I know them! I like to call myself a writer (but you actually have to write to do that) so of course I rely on words to get my point across but also (hopefully) make money one day. I like big words like "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and I like little words like "a". Money is my least favorite word along with hate, war, and religion. Every word is very significant and can completely change a meaning of a sentence. And if you know me at all you would know that I LOVE to analyze sentences and find different meanings! Oh, Words, one of my biggest debts is to you.


Sticking to Things (Not to be confused with being stubborn) - I have this annoying inability to quit things. I finish what I start. Oftentimes, I have a difficult time seeing when something has finished and continue to try, fight, hope, etc for something. I think that this is a great characteristic to have which I am incredibly thankful for. After all, you will never know the outcome of a situation if you do not stick to it. This past week, I watched a friend possibly miss a great chance, which broke my heart. It was actually that moment that I just thanked the Powers That Be for my ability to just finish things and also for guiding me to a much needed nap instead of following my mom in a taxi cab to the airport. Liverpool is the best decision I have made in a long time. I am so happy that I just don't know how to quit things or I would have left Liverpool that first moment my mom left too.  P.S.  I am stubborn.


My Education- I often joked at a part of Marywood's long time mission statement which is something like -teaching students to live independently in an interdependent world- and something along the lines of helping students develop critical thinking skills. However, they knew what they were doing. It is because of my years at MU that I am able to be a leader in a group and that I am able to solve problems quickly (real problems, not math problems). Then when I add in my English background combined with my teacher training background I am overwhelmed with gratitude with the choices that I have made. This also came in handy at 3:30 in the morning when a friend of mine in the States needed help writing an introduction to a research paper. Guess who was able to write that up in minutes? How can one not be grateful for having the ability to help out a friend? I may be in an enormous amount of debt and have nothing to show for it. But, at the end of the day I get to say I am a teacher. Thanks to the Universe is in order for that one.


My Brother - drives me insane. But there is no one I can count on quite like I can count on him. We are very much alike but we have entirely different ideas and beliefs about things. This makes it quite impossible to have a conversation with each other. He thinks he's always right, yet I know I am always right. So you can see how we run into a problem. However, this past week I was talking to one of my flatmates about siblings and she told me that she doesn't have an older brother but she always wanted one. I automatically thought of how lucky I am to have mine. I am so unbelievably grateful to have him as a brother. Please understand, I love all of my siblings equally. But, there is nothing like a relationship with an older brother to a sister. I have a older and younger sister so I know that there is a difference between the relationships of each. It's funny because I was "working" with a friend of his this spring and he said something that was getting me agitated and someone else said "Autumn, I would love to see you deck him." The pea brain then said "I'm Corey's friend." I looked at him and said, "I'm Corey's sister." And then a friend chimed in and said "She's his sister and it's Autumn. You won't win that battle." Pretty much how it's been my whole life.

Corey's birthday is three days after mine and every year (except for when he turned 18) and when I lived in Florida we blew out the cakes together (and now Jacob does it too). Of course, I love when my birthday comes along but I always thought I was especially lucky because I got to share my candles with Corey. We threw a surprise party for him and it was my job to get him to the place. I said "why me?!" and my mom responded with "because he will go there for you." It's kind the way it has always been. Not that he wouldn't do it for anyone else, but, Corey really goes out of his way for me often and I try to do the same for him.

When my heart was broken, I called Corey. When there is bad news, I call Corey. When there is good news, I call Corey. When things are going great, I call Corey. When I am trouble, I tell everyone not to call Corey. And when I am about to do something stupid (which really how often does that happen), I hear I am going to tell Corey. As long as I can remember he has always watched out for me, even when I couldn't recognize that he was only trying to help.

So I found this from an old blog of mine the same night I had the sibling conversation:

He [Corey] always watched out for me. When I look at pictures from when we were little he is always standing near me looking like he is standing guard for me... and I said that to him and my mom the other day and they both respond with "that's cause I/he was. " - May 02, 2006

What are you grateful for this week?